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Thursday, June 30, 2016

Summer is the time when Hollywood unleashes its annual swarm
of massive tentpole blockbusters; movies full of epic-scale action, dashing
heroics, and grandiose exploits. Maybe it’s not always be the most delicate,
intellectually stimulating fare, but there’s usually big entertaining popcorn
fun to be found. This year, not so much.

Wednesday, June 29, 2016

As a franchise, The Purge is steeped in
the low-budget exploitation fare of previous generations. The first film was a
rote home invasion yarn with a dystopian sci-fi twist thrown in for good
measure. A year later, The Purge: Anarchy was a grim, nasty
throwback revenge thriller. Produced on the cheap, both were wildly profitable,
and two years later we have The Purge: Election Year, which
escalates the saga to an absurdist, (il)logical (hopefully) conclusion.

Phenomenally beautiful to look at in that effortless,
stunning way Steven Spielberg does so much better than everyone else and that
appears so easy and natural, The BFG is as dull as a pile of
sopping wet cardboard.

Monday, June 27, 2016

We’re just a few weeks away from Star Trek
Beyond, which feels strange to say as there’s been a noticeable lack
of hype surrounding the film—at least aside from the backlash stirred up by the
first trailer. Maybe Paramount is still shell-shocked by the hatred for
Star Trek Into Darkness (which, despite its reputation for
being critically panned, has an 86% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes). But there
is a new “final” trailer to check out, and it’s a total downer.

Thursday, June 23, 2016

The original Mechanic—the 1972, Michael
Winner-directed, Charles Bronson and Jan-Michael Vincent-starring original, not
the 2011 remake—is one of my all-time favorites. While the Jason
Statham-fronted update doesn’t live up to that, it’s a fun enough DTV-style
actioner, the kind that only comes to theaters when Statham takes the lead. It
was apparently successful enough to warrant a sequel, and Mechanic:
Resurrection just dropped a first trailer.

Tuesday, June 21, 2016

At this stage of the game, it’s damn near impossible to tell
a good, unique zombie story. Even when there are gems, you have to dig through
fields of shit to get there, but there may be some hope on the horizon. While it
doesn’t appear to be super groundbreaking (this is definitely a child of Danny
Boyle’s 28 Days Later), The Girl With All The Gifts,
could breathe a bit of new life into the genre. Check out the first trailer after the jump.

Monday, June 20, 2016

Well, this is an interesting turn of events. A while back,
the news hit that the duo behind Big Bad Wolves, Aharon Keshales
and Navot Papushado, were going to direct a remake of DeathWish starring Bruce Willis. Citing the ubiquitious “creative
differences,” those two dropped out, but now it’s being reported that Eli Roth
will direct Bruce Willis in a remake of Death Wish. That’s…intriguing.

When you think of international horror, Turkey may not be the
first name that pops up, but lately there has been a terrifying wave of
crazy-ass genre fare from the Eurasian nation that’s made many aficionados take
notice. Watch Baskin, just do it. You may not know Alper
Mestçi yet, but you may want to take notice and check out the trailer for the
director’s latest, Üç Harfliler 3.

Friday, June 17, 2016

South Korean auteur Bong Joon-ho is the mastermind behind
one of the greatest modern creature features, The Host. So
when we heard he’s returning to monster movie territory with the upcoming
Okja, we were understandably stoked. Then he put together an
incredible international cast along the same lines as
Snowpiercer, and we started drooling. Now some new details
have slithered out, and we may or may not have started dancing around the
office with glee.

Wednesday, June 15, 2016

To this day, I still maintain that Hard
Target, yes, the one with Jean-Claude Van Damme sporting that Jheri
curl mullet, is John Woo’s best American film. If nothing else, it’s the most
similar to the classics he built his reputation on, like Hard
Boiled, The Killer, and A Better
Tomorrow. Talk of Hard Target 2 swirled around
last year, and apparently that was more than internet hearsay, as it just
dropped a trailer. And against all odds, it looks awesome.

Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Documentary collage as autobiography is an intriguing
narrative premise. In Cameraperson, Kirsten Johnson uses
footage from the acclaimed films she’s photographed over the years (including
Citizenfour, The Invisible War,
The Oath, and many more) to construct a cinematic memoir.

Monday, June 13, 2016

Yesterday the Seattle International Film Festival announced
its award winners, both those selected by a jury and those voted on by the audience.
I’m sure they’re lovely movies, but as usual, I have little interest in watching
most of them. My tastes tend to run in different directions, and with that in
mind, here are my favorites of SIFF 2016, in no particular order except that in
which they occurred to me. They’re all excellent and you should check out every
last one when you have the chance.

Friday, June 10, 2016

As if living in a war-torn city in the aftermath of an
uprising and having to regularly head to the basement because bombs are
dropping all around isn’t terrifying enough, what do you do when a mysterious
evil haunts you and your child? That sucks, and it’s also what happens to
Shideh (Narges Rashidi) and her young daughter, Dorsa (Avin Manshadi), in Babak
Anvaris’ excellent new Iranian horror film Under the Shadow, which just screened at SIFF.

Thursday, June 9, 2016

My understanding is that Duncan Jones’
Warcraft is based not directly on Blizzard’s massive online
role playing game World of Warcraft, but on the lore from
that world that precedes the playable action. The fact that it’s a prelude
makes a great deal of sense, as this may be the most blatant attempt by
Legendary and Universal to launch a franchise that I’ve ever encountered. I’m
all for an epic, ambitious, weird new fantasy saga, but from what we get here,
not this one.

Wednesday, June 8, 2016

Okay, we get it, James Wan, your last movie made a
billion-plus dollars and your next one probably will, too. You can do anything
you want. And I dig that what you want to do is make creepy-as-shit, mid-budget
horror movies. That’s an impulse I can certainly get behind 110%. And you’re
good at it, you understand the genre like few other filmmakers working right
now. As you become a massive blockbuster director, please feel free to continue
dabbling in horror from time to time. But damn, dude, why did TheConjuring 2 need to be 133 minutes long?

Tuesday, June 7, 2016

From the very first frame, writer/director Jason Bagnacki’s
neo-giallo Mark of the Witch (formerly titled
Another) sets a dark mood and an atmosphere fraught with
tension. When you start your movie with a bunch of creepy dudes in black robes
performing an occult ritual on a baby in a cave, this sort of thing is bound to
happen. Spooky imagery, slow motion shots, an ominous drone, and many more
tools of the trade pile layer upon layer of pressure on top of you as you
watch. One scene even slows and well-known pop song ever so slightly just in
order to disconcert you in a new and different way.

Richard Ramirez was a terrifying serial killer who raped and
murdered his way through the mid-1980s and was fond of talking about Satan,
evil, and the like. In writer/director Megan Griffiths’ new movie,
The Night Stalker, Lou Diamond Phillips turns in a decently
skin-crawling version of notorious killer, but the rest of movie is shrug
worthy at best.

Friday, June 3, 2016

Though he doesn’t get the same press as his South Korean
compatriots Park Chan-wook (Oldboy,
Stoker), Kim Jee-woon (I Saw the Devil,
A Bittersweet Life), or Bong Joon-ho (The
Host, Snowpiercer), Na Hong-jin has done nothing but
turn out some of the best dark, gritty thrillers in recent memory. Following
crime dramas The Chaser and The Yellow Sea,
it’s been six years since the director’s last movie, but he’s back with the
supernatural horror The Wailing
(Goksung). Though it’s uncharted genre territory for the
filmmaker, it looks like he may start getting the recognition he deserves.

Thursday, June 2, 2016

2014’s big screen Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot was not a great movie. I don’t hate it with the fiery scorn
of many, but at best it’s a bland, unnecessary rehash of something done better
a number times. But it made boatloads of cash, so a sequel was green-lit opening
weekend, and now Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows
is here.

Wednesday, June 1, 2016

A documentary about a rag-tag group of comedians, actresses,
writers, and other women playing in a Los Angeles recreational basketball league
sounds like a lark, right? Like it may be an entertaining momentary
distraction, but not much more. While director Brent Hodge’s (A Brony
Tale, I Am Chris Farley) The Pistol
Shrimps is very much that, it’s also sweet and heartfelt, in addition
to being funny as shit.